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ObservanceFriday, October 29, 2027

Diwali

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Diwali is the festival of lights: five days in autumn marked by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists, and named for the Sanskrit dipavali, a row of lamps. Its date is set by a lunisolar calendar rather than the Gregorian one, so it moves between mid-October and mid-November. In the United States it has recently become a legislated holiday as well as a domestic one — New York City closes its public schools for it, and Pennsylvania has designated a state Diwali Day, though without requiring anyone to close.

History

Diwali is a contraction of the Sanskrit Deepavali, which the resolution the U.S. House adopted in 2007 glossed as "a row of lamps" — the lamps being diyas, small oil lamps set along thresholds and windowsills. What they commemorate depends on who is lighting them, and saying so is more accurate than picking one story. For many Hindus they mark the return of Rama to Ayodhya; the festival is also sacred to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and good fortune, whom a row of lamps is lit to invite. The second day commemorates Krishna's victory over the demon Narakasura. For Jains, Diwali marks the liberation of Mahavira, the most recent Tirthankara, from samsara, which Jain tradition — repeated in that 2007 resolution — places at the end of his life in 527 B.C. Sikhs keep the day as the anniversary of the release of the sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind, from imprisonment by the Mughal emperor Jahangir. Britannica's biography of Hargobind records the jailing at the fortress of Gwalior and the emperor's eventual relenting but gives no year for either, and no acceptable source supplies the 1619 that circulates online, so this page does not print it. President Obama's 2009 Diwali remarks named the observing communities as "Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists" — the qualifier on Buddhists is doing real work.

The date is harder to state cleanly than it looks. Britannica places the five days across the lunar months of Ashvina and Karttika and puts the main night, Lakshmi Puja, on the new moon; the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art puts the festival in October or November, traditionally after the year's last harvest. The states that have legislated it needed a formula a school calendar could use and fixed a lunar date instead: New York's statute says "the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Indian calendar," Pennsylvania's the fifteenth day of Kartik.

The American official record is recent. Congress began taking up Diwali resolutions in 2005, one of them asking the Postal Service for a stamp; the first to pass a chamber was H.Res. 747, agreed to in the House on October 29, 2007. In 2009 President Obama lit a diya in the East Room, the first time a president took part personally, though Diwali had been marked at the White House under earlier administrations. The stamp came in October 2016, dedicated at the Consulate General of India in New York. New York enacted its school closure in November 2023 and Pennsylvania designated Diwali Day in 2024. On scale, nobody measures it: Pew put Hindus at 0.9 percent of American adults in 2023–24 and the Census counted about 5.2 million people identifying as Indian in 2023, but no survey asks how many Americans observe Diwali, so any round number you see was invented.

Timeline

  • 527 B.C. — Jain tradition places Mahavira's attainment of moksha at the end of his life in this year; the 2007 House resolution repeats the date.
  • October 29, 2007 — H.Res. 747 is agreed to in the House, the first Diwali resolution to pass a chamber of Congress; the Senate adopts S.Res. 299 on November 14.
  • October 14, 2009 — President Obama lights a diya in the East Room, the first time a president takes part in a White House Diwali observance.
  • October 2016 — The Postal Service issues a Diwali Forever stamp, dedicated at the Consulate General of India in New York, eleven years after a 2005 House resolution asked for one.
  • November 14, 2023 — Governor Hochul signs the law closing New York City public schools for Diwali; the first Diwali to fall after it took effect was Friday, November 1, 2024.
  • 2024 — Pennsylvania enacts Act 112, designating the fifteenth day of Kartik as Diwali Day, while expressly not requiring schools, government offices or businesses to close.

How to observe

Lamps first, because the diya is the point: a row of them along a doorway or windowsill is the observance in its simplest form. The five days each have their own character — Dhanteras opens the festival on the thirteenth lunar day of Karttika, Naraka Chaturdashi or "small Diwali" follows, Lakshmi Puja is the main night, Govardhan Puja commemorates Krishna lifting up a mountain to shelter the cowherds from the rain Indra sent, and Bhai Dooj, for the bond between brothers and sisters, closes it.

Public celebrations here are large and mostly free: Diwali at Times Square, outdoors in Duffy Square with no ticket, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, which opens after hours for rangoli-making, music, performances and curator-led tours of its South Asian collections. If you are planning around the New York City school calendar, check the year rather than assuming — the closure only produces a day off when Diwali falls on a school day. It did in 2024 and 2025; the published 2026–27 calendar carries none, because the festival lands on a Sunday in 2026. And if you would rather read the record than attend anything, New York's statute, the House resolution as adopted, the stamp release and the transcript of the 2009 diya lighting are all linked below.

Frequently asked questions

When is Diwali?

It has no fixed Gregorian date. The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art places the festival in October or November; Britannica puts its main night, Lakshmi Puja, on the new moon. The dates table on this page carries the computed dates for the next five years.

Is Diwali a federal holiday in the United States?

No. Federal offices, banks and post offices operate normally. Three states have acted on it: Pennsylvania designated a Diwali Day in 2024 but its law expressly does not require schools, government offices or businesses to close; California's governor signed AB 268, listed as "State holidays: Diwali," in October 2025; and New York's 2023 law applies to New York City public schools only.

Do New York City public schools close for Diwali?

Yes, under a law signed on November 14, 2023 — but only when Diwali falls on a school day. The 2024–25 calendar closed schools on Friday, November 1, 2024, and the 2025–26 calendar on Monday, October 20, 2025. The 2026–27 calendar carries no Diwali closure, because the festival falls on a Sunday in 2026.

Which religions observe Diwali?

Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, and some Buddhists. Each brings a different occasion to the same lights: Rama's return or Lakshmi's visit for many Hindus, Mahavira's liberation for Jains, Guru Hargobind's release from Gwalior for Sikhs.

What does the word Diwali mean?

It is a contraction of the Sanskrit Deepavali. Britannica and the congressional record both render it as a row of lamps or a row of lights. The Postal Service's 2016 stamp release instead called it "a necklace of lights"; that reading is an outlier.

When is Diwali?

YearDateDay
2027October 29Friday
2028October 17Tuesday
2029November 5Monday
2030October 26Saturday
2031November 14Friday

Sources

Source conflict reported rather than averaged: which lunar month the festival falls in. Britannica's main article puts the five days across Ashvina and Karttika; its Dhanteras article puts day one on the thirteenth lunar day of Karttika; its Govardhan Puja article calls day four "the first day of Karttika"; the congressional resolutions say "the last day of the last month in the lunar calendar"; and the New York and Pennsylvania statutes fix it as the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Indian calendar, or of Kartik. This page states the invariant they all agree on — the new-moon night of the mid-autumn lunation, in October or November — and gives the statutory formulation for the U.S. legal date, rather than presenting any one of those sentences as the rule.

Second conflict: the meaning of Deepavali. The Postal Service's 2016 release calls it "a necklace of lights"; Britannica and three congressional resolutions give a row of lamps or lights. The row reading is preferred as the better attested, and the Postal Service's is quoted as the outlier rather than averaged in.

Third conflict: who first observed Diwali at the White House. The Obama administration's blog and the President's own 2009 remarks claim a first for presidential participation, while President Biden's 2022 remarks say "there had been Diwali celebrations in previous administrations." The two are compatible, and this page says so: presidential participation began in 2009, and institutional observance predates it by an interval no acceptable source specifies.

Omitted for want of an acceptable source: any year for Guru Hargobind's release from Gwalior, including the widely repeated 1619, and the associated story of 52 princes; a start year for White House Diwali observances, including the commonly printed 2003; any claim that Newar Buddhists observe Diwali; any count of Americans who celebrate Diwali; the founding year of the Diwali at Times Square event and of the Association of Indians in America's New York festival; the exact signing date of Pennsylvania's Act 112, which is derivable only from a "yesterday" in an October 22, 2024 press release, so the year alone is used; the statutory effect of California's AB 268, whose chaptered text could not be retrieved, so only the fact of signing is stated; and Connecticut's Diwali legislation, which could be confirmed from the state's own sources only as a committee-stage proposed bill.

Less than fully confident, flagged deliberately: the characterization of November 1, 2024 as the first New York City school closure for Diwali. No government page says "for the first time." The inference is tight — the law was signed on November 14, 2023, after that year's Diwali, and the 2024–25 calendar is the first to carry the entry — and the page is worded to state the inference rather than assert the superlative.

Not used as sources: nationaltoday, nationaldaycalendar, checkiday, timeanddate, Wikipedia, and comparable aggregator and content-farm pages.

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